Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20677 in Books
• Published on: 1992-06-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 563 pages

Customer Reviews

The Best Graduate-leveled Microeconomics textbook
I am rather surprised at such comment: "It amazes me how the author can put so little information into one book. If you want to see the core of modern Microeconomics you should buy Mas-Colell. Varian's book is simply outdated, and is not suitable for serious graduate programs any more."

As a professor teaching at University of California, I found Varian the best graduate-leveled microeconomic textbook I have ever read. The book is extremely concise, well-organized and hits the points directly. None of the other textbooks, up to this moment, can be compared with this one in writing style. It can also serve as a nice reference book in the long run.

Mas-Colell's textbook has very good explanation of game theory, but in terms of nice exposition of classical micro theory, Varian is definitely better.

Tremendous!
If you are hunting for a terrific graduate-level text in microeconomic theory, pick up Varian's 3rd Ed. Microeconomic Analysis. The book is rigorous, but not at all overwhelming, and is replete with the kinds of exciting results that made you major in economics as an undergraduate. Moreover, the book is concise -- the author seems to recognize that taking a long time to explain relatively straightforward concepts is not a way to endear onesself to one's readers. (Unlike a certain very large and cumbersome graduate microeconomics textbooks that came out recently.)

I saw some comments about the book requiring topology. I beg to differ -- while the math requirements are nontrivial, they are not so severe as topology. Anyone with a good background in linear algebra and multivariate calculus will find the book approachable. A course in rigor and proof, such as "Foundations," might be useful, but one can pick up such details from Varian's text itself. Differential equations and Real Analysis help, but are by no means essential.

This is a terrific text for graduate and highly advanced undergraduate economics students. However, I suspect many graduate business students will find the mathematics unweildy and perhaps a bit unnecessary for their purposes.

The Best in the Market!
This is the best in the market as: (1) It contains most important materials anout micro; (2) The author used very clear-cut and concise tone in explaining the economic rationale behind those theories; (3) The book does not have excessive math proofs; (4) The author's objective is understanding of economic rationale, not just math proofs.

Some may say this text's treatments is NOT serious enough. They are definitely wrong as those texts running pages and pages of math proofs does not mean it is serious, but TEDIOUS!

This title may be a bit out-dated but still a lot better than Mas-Colell which is all about proofs, proofs and proofs followed by several sentences of explanation in each section.